Bottled Water and Nursing

Bottled Water Unknowns and It's Implications Upon Nursing

Article review

My mother once told me that if you want a gift to be coveted, you should wrap it as pretty as possible with bows and ribbons and the recipient will be impressed even before they see the contents. The bottled water industry have followed this logic with their product presentation. They package in unique square bottles or crystal clear hard plastics that are appealing to the consumer but the issue is that the consumer does not know where the water comes from, and are unaware of the true contents their pretty package holds.
Time Magazine states the bottle water industry is a sixteen billion dollar a year business. Bottled water is expensive, nearly one thousand times the price of what you receive from the tap, but yet its not held to the same standards of purification as tap water. Bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration which is not nearly as strict in the testing of water as the Environmental Protection Agency which regulates tap water. Bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate or DEHP is a chemical commonly tested for and regulated by the EPA in tap water. Bottled water companies are not held to the same standard in testing for DEHP and the levels can be much higher in bottled water. There is also the issue with the plastic bottles that water is stored in. Due to a lack of recycling they are becoming an environmental hazard due to the overflow of landfills. Plastic bottles also contain the chemical DEHP because the chemical is a common ingredient in plastic production, this chemical then can leak from landfills to the water supply creating a perpetual cycle of contamination. Many people who drink bottled water think they are choosing a healthier water by but are very misinformed, mostly due to bottled water companies lack of disclosure (Fredrix, 2009).
Health promotion, risk reduction, and disease prevention
Since the chemical DEHP does pose a sizable risk to the population...